Novel
Ahbe's Family
아베의 가족
Jeon Sang-guk · 1979
Synopsis
The narrator, Kim Jin-ho, tells the story of his family. During the Korean War, his mother, pregnant by her husband, was raped by an American soldier; she gave birth to Abe, a severely disabled child who can say only his own name. The family left him behind in Korea to emigrate to the United States, but cannot manage to forget him, and the mother finds no peace there. In the middle of the narrative we hear the notebook in which the mother recounts the post-war years, before Jin-ho, back in Korea, sets out in search of his half-brother.
Context
The story, of medium length, appeared in 1979 in the journal Hanguk Munhak and gave its title to the collection published in 1980. It consists of three parts: the narrator's account, from a generation that did not know the war; the mother's notebook, which describes the immediate postwar years; the half-brother's quest. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture sees in Abe the symbol of the wounds of the war and the contradictions of the division, contrasts emigration, a negative way out, with the search for Abe, and holds that the wound of the division is not healed by forgetting.
Who it is for
A novella in three parts, with two voices; translated into Spanish, German and, in a bilingual edition, English.
Prizes and reception
Hanguk Munhak Writers' Prize in 1979 and Republic Prize for Literature in 1980.
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